


Her Horns Made Holy

by ConcerningConstellations



Series: the glass in your mouth; the cracks in your halo [2]
Category: Greek Mythology, Greek and Roman Mythology, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Bitterness, Freestyle, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Horns, Imagery, Mythology - Freeform, Other, Poetry, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Wolves, and arrowheads, and fangs, artemis is a goddess who wants to be more, halos, im doing my best guys, prose, she is hard and cold but so are swords, stylized, vague arethusa / artemis but dont worry about it, vent - Freeform, women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 18:09:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16938159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConcerningConstellations/pseuds/ConcerningConstellations
Summary: she has hornsthat are not unlike the devil’s.-(OR: Artemis aches).





	Her Horns Made Holy

Artemis bleeds sliver

beneath a full moon.

she stands tall between two shores,

reeds and rocks and fresh water,

surrounded by and wolves and women,

whom, often,

she cannot tell apart.

Artemis wears the pelts of her enemies, howls like one her brother’s instruments,

as the world around her rallies,

flows between her feet.

 

-

 

Artemis gifts immortality to girls left gasping

in damp back-alleys.

she cleans up the blood, offers them a bow,

shows them how to aim.

“your enemies shall be mine,” she promises,

panting behind pointed teeth,

her hand covering theirs,

helping pull the arrow back.

 

-

 

Artemis has horns

that are not unlike the devil’s.

they twist back around her head,

sit ivory and perfect,

like the crown of a stag.

her brother, the bright fool, once called it a halo.

Artemis leaves him to his wine, returns silently to the wild,

where her kingdom is a coin,

both heads and tales,

Heaven and Hells.

 

-

 

Artemis wipes blood from her lips—

red blood—

blood that is not her own.

she hunts on nights like these, the pack behind her,

the land moon-drunk and dangerous.

she runs down the men who are careless with their power,

beasts who did not bend the knee,

kings who strayed too far

from their walls.

these nights, she is not a god.

she is something with claws

and fangs

and foreign eyes

that cut deeper than the rest.

 

-

 

Artemis aches beneath the ribs,

both eyes black,

blood buried beneath perfect nails.

she wins her fights,

but the fights bite back,

and she indulges in the hurt, drinks it in,

lets her den flood with the smell of ichor.

There are the maidens—

the younger ones,

the ones who belong still in this lifetime—

who have not learned.

they dare to draw close to her suffering, her bleeding, her price,

hands opened, intentions clean.

but she snarls a feral warnings, 

sends them away, 

her teeth dripping red; horns sharp and stained.

they flee as her godhood breaches the surface.

 

-

 

Artemis listens to the sound of Creation,

her brother coaxing out small miracles

from the strings at his lap.

it is that hour where the day reluctantly hands over the world

and night douses its corners,

soothes out the creases.

“this one is new,” he comments, tracing the scar under her lip,

a lithe white curve.

she stares as the light leaves the horizon,

feathering her arrows, stringing her bow.

“this one is old,” she retaliates, nodding to the harp, 

to the symphony that could have seduced the stars.

he is hurt, but she calloused.

she kisses him on the forehead,

heads north.

 

-

 

Artemis saves those she can,

and mourns the few she cannot.

Arethusa, she mourns for years. for decades. for _lifetimes._

she mourns in the way only a goddess could,

until her tears made a river,

and the river made a waterfall,

and the waterfall fell onto a city of men, drowned them in their sleep.

it was not enough.

she finds the one who left her maiden—

her companion—

her _sister—_

in pieces;

she turns him into walking venison, sets him loose onto the night.

she stalks him for a moon 

before putting an arrow between his legs.

_(and ribs._

_and knuckles._

_and eyes.)_

 

-

 

Artemis listens to her father during midsummer nights

as he tears through her domain,

leaving flooded creeks,

flash burns at the backs of her eyes.

she sits against the soft heaving sides, 

her own teeth bared in what she told herself was a smile,

a snarl.

_justice does not suit you,_ chimes the storm,

rain that rubs the red off her knuckles.

she shrugs, her shadow brought forward through the flashes,

the slight image of something narrow, and sharp, 

and hungry.

“what is deserved, i bestow,” she answers, 

and Zeus laughs, 

the sound of the sky tearing in two,

Olympus opening above her.

_and where would that leave us?_ he asks,

and she bows her head,

says nothing.

 

-

 

The dawn is blinding.

Artemis hands it all back, the trees and the men and the blood,

folds it over into Apollo’s hands,

so much smoother than her own.

he rises to the occasion

and she sinks down below the horizon,

a shadow coaxed back by the light.

it’s nothing personal.

she hopes he knows.

“you could stay,” he offers, knowing she wouldn’t, knowing it was vanity.

she shakes her head, squints at the sun, tries to play it off.

“they will not miss me,” she promises,

and he looks back at what she had given him, 

that thin ribcage of life,

between which he could a heart

bearing her teeth marks.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this tangled excuse of personal work, please consider leaving a comment or checking out the other work(s) in this collection. 
> 
> for those wondering, Pyrrhic will be updated during holiday break. after i chug out that last chapter and epilogue, i'll give Gravity another shot. thank you to those who are being patient with me.
> 
> cheers!


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